


Heaven's in Here

by bruxabrvxa (Mistrust), Mistrust



Category: Ashes to Ashes
Genre: F/M, galex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistrust/pseuds/bruxabrvxa, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mistrust/pseuds/Mistrust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Molly Drake’s 15th birthday and exactly three years after her mother’s death. Since then, she celebrates the date going to her mother’s grave, despite her godfather’s attempt to make surprise parties every year. The truth is, although young, Molly is too mature for her own age, and has a very clear goal in life – to see the man who shot her mother behind bars. She has collected every single piece of information about that day three years ago almost obsessively.</p><p>    It’s on her 15th birthday that tragedy crosses Molly’s path once again. On the brink of death, she’s lead backwards in time, to 1989, where she’ll find more questions and surprises than a teenage girl can handle, it doesn’t matter how mature they think they are.</p><p>    She doesn’t know how she got there. She doesn’t know what all of that means or what she’s supposed to do. All she knows is that a certain DCI is not happy to see her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hope You're Happy Too

**Author's Note:**

> I made some research to write this, but I'm still missing a couple of vital info to make this more convincing. However, since it seems impossible to find what I need, I'll just have to make it work with what I have.
> 
> And before the reader can go on, I do have a plausible (passable?) explanation as to why Molly ends up in the coppers' limbo, since she is no copper. Just run along, will ya?
> 
> My last, but not least, note is that I am NOT a native English speaker, and I have no beta reader whatsoever (it's only me and Microsoft Word), so bear with my mistakes. Also, you have no idea how hard I worked to get some of the slang correct – and I'll probably get that wrong a lot as well, but I really can't do much about it. Remember, no beta reader!

_They got a message from the action man_

_"I'm happy, hope you're happy too_

_I've loved all I needed to love"…_

 

* * *

 

Molly Drake awoke with a start, gasping.

A nightmare. Yet another one.

Her heart was beating fast and her breathing was shallow. The daylight was barely visible behind the heavy curtains of her bedroom, and yet, she couldn’t bring herself to go back to sleep. The song ringing in her ears was enough to leave her awake, but there was also something else… Today was the Day.

_Hope you’re happy too…_

She sighed, still lying on her bed, feeling the room around her slowly take her away from that sordid music, which haunted her dreams for years now. Three years, to be exact. Three whole years since the Day.

Rubbing her eyes, feeling less caught up in the bad dream, Molly rose from her bed and headed for the bathroom, zigzagging through the bedroom, which would be considered a typical teenage mess if it wasn’t for one detail: instead of clothes, electronic gadgets, half-forgotten toys and make up, her room was a huge pile of papers.

Thrown about the room, the curious eye would found several newspapers clips from three years ago, along with manila folder that weren’t supposed to be there and several scattered and random papers scribbled in, with schemes and names and dates, many of which featured the dreaded lyrics Molly had grown accustomed with.

She got into the bathroom and turned on the light, looking at her reflection. Her memory flashed back, three years ago, going down those stairs in the dock, with a gun pointed at her face.

As they descended, he kept threatening her. But as they got all the way down, he pushed her against the brick wall and smiled a crazed smile, and whispered the song to her, before running and disappearing from her sight, never to be seen again.

_They got a message from the action man_

_"I'm happy, hope you're happy too_

_I've loved all I needed to love"…_

She shook her head and washed her face with cold water, trying to get rid of the memory. It was hard though, being it The Day.

She already knew the whole ritual she and her godfather Evan had created for themselves on her birthday. He would greet her at the breakfast table with a present and insisting on a party. She would refuse with all her might, and then she’d spend the day in the graveyard, being it not a school day.

In the first year, her psychologist and her godfather had gone mad with the idea, telling her this would only make things worse, that she had to move on, that it was all over, her mother wouldn’t approve of that… But as the years passed by, they all gave up on that fight. She would always go to the graveyard, spend the afternoon there or the morning, and as she didn’t seem sadder on her way back home, Evan thought it was best to leave it alone. There was no use in antagonizing her. She was as stubborn as her mother.

Then, when she would eventually come back at noon, he would have this ridiculous party set up for her, and she would have to bear with all those school girls she didn’t like and all those school boys who didn’t like her. But for her godfather’s sake, she’d put on her best surprised face and go along with the act.

Today wasn’t going to be any different, she knew that much, sighing heavily.

If only he would take her seriously…


	2. The Day

Evan was already at the breakfast table reading the newspaper when she got down. He was always an early bird, be it Mondays or Sundays. His hair was greyer than ever, and though he had shaved, he looked much older than he really was. Molly suspected that many of those expression lines were her fault, but she did her best to ignore it.

“Hey” she greeted him, coyly.

Evan smiled at her and put down the newspaper. “There you are, birthday girl, finally on her feet!”

Molly gave him a queasy smile. “Yeah, here I am” she shrugged and sat down. “And it’s not like it’s late, I’m pretty early today, aren’t I?” she asked, while filling her plate with fresh made eggs.

“Yeah, in comparison with your usual late self, you are” he winked at her. “So! Are you ready for today?”

Molly moaned loudly. “You’re not planning a ridiculous party again, are you, Evan?” she asked, no use trying to be dodgy with the subject.

Evan sighed in feigned tiredness. “Guilty!”

She rolled her eyes. “When are you ever going to give up, hm?”

They smiled at each other fondly. Without warning, he picked something up from his lap and put it on the table. It was a beautifully wrapped box, which was the size of Molly’s hand, and shone with golden sparkles. “Here”.

She got the present from him, smiling. The small box was wrapped in golden paper and had a beautiful white bow over it, very delicately placed. It looked somewhat special, and Molly, for the first time in three years, was actually curious to open a present. As she traced the bow with her fingers, ready to untie it, Evan put a hand over hers, stilling her movements.

She looked up at him, puzzled. “What?”

“Since you’ve got all my surprise parties figured out, I made something different this year” he began, smiling enigmatically at her. “I’m giving you this now but I’d like you to wait until the party to open it.”

She raised an eyebrow, confused. “Really?”

“Really”.

She looked down at the wrapped box. “What is it, a bomb?”

He smiled, ignoring her joke. “Just wait until the party, will you?”

“Evan…” she sighed, tiredly, pushing the unopened present aside. “Can’t I just skip the party bit? I mean, I always go but you know I never…”

“Now, now” he silenced her, shaking his head and growing serious. “I don’t want to hear a word about missing the party, are you listening? This is supposed to be a celebration day. It’s your 15th birthday, and it’s not every day that a lady gets to celebrate this age. So I don’t want to hear none of this nonsense, alright?”

Molly could hear the slightest tone of irritation in his voice. It was always like that, and last year they got into an ugly fight because of the people he had invited to her party – a party that she didn’t want to have, for starters.

She crossed her arms, suddenly losing all her appetite. “Whatever” was her answer.

That made Evan rub his eyes tiredly. “That’s not enough, Mols. Why can’t you just enjoy it?”

“Yeah, yeah, right, I’ll enjoy it alright!” she replied quickly, wanting him to shut up.

“Molly, your mother wouldn’t…”

“Exactly, Evan!” she burst, losing her temper. “My mother wouldn’t mind me going to where I like to go on my birthday!”

Evan bit his lower lip, tired. He always looked drained on her birthdays, it didn’t matter how hard he tried to look happy. “I’m not stopping you now, am I? I’m just asking you to be at the party. With me and with the people who loves you. This year your father is coming with his new wife, so please, Molly. Don’t do this to yourself. Your mother wouldn’t want that.”

She sighed. She wanted to shout at him and say that he was wrong, but she knew he was being very reasonable and that she was being very childish.

“I will, if that’s what you want…” she finally gave in, stressing the ‘you’.

He smiled at her, satisfied. “Great. Now take your present to your bedroom, I won’t risk you walking about with it, I know how curious you are, Scrap!”

She shrugged. “Alright then, but this better be good… To wait until this stupid party. I hope it pays off”.

He tried a smile in her direction. “It will”.

She doubted it. Nothing could pay off to stand those stupid parties her godfather would arrange to her, not even an intriguing present.

His phone rang and he picked it up. “Evan White speaking” he answered it, very professionally. Even though retired now, many people would call him for consulting on official matters, and he would always answer their queries. He listened to the person on the other side of the phone and excused himself from the table with an apologetic look at Molly. He looked worried when he left the kitchen, heading for his office.

That was usually how it rolled, people calling him with all kinds of questions to which he would not only answer, but research about it to give a fully constructed argument.

Evan White was a very solicitous person… But when it was her turn to ask him about legal matters, he would always avert the subject. Ever since her 13th birthday every question she asked pertaining her mother’s death was averted like the plague, and Molly didn’t know why.

It took her months to decide what to do with her life, how to cope with her mother’s death, and when she had finally done it, when she had finally emerged from the depression… People seemed as disapproving as ever. When she had openly admitted that she wanted to find her mother’s killer, her psychologist almost had a seizure and Evan spent weeks trying to talk her out of it.

Molly could hear him talking on the phone nervously but she couldn’t quite make out the words. He looked really mad. It didn’t matter though. When he was finished, he’d go back to Molly and ask her to please dress up appropriately to the party, then he would smile and say “have a nice day”. She knew that ritual all too well. And she also knew why he always rushed on these birthday mornings.

He hated her questioning him about her mother, and from time to time Molly would throw caution to the air and actually question him like a suspect.

Today, she decided, she’d do it again.

After three years of polite resistance to her idea of looking for her mother’s killer, a few months ago he had finally agreed to help her out with some information which was beyond the public domain, expressly prohibiting her of making anything but study the papers on her bedroom (she had, in some crazy occasions, actually gone to some very dingy locations looking for Arthur Layton herself, which ended up with half the coppers in the city looking for her like crazy). However, Molly was starting to feel like a fool. It had been months since that promise, and Evan had never spoken about it afterwards, only when she asked him “how’s it going” and he’d reply with a “have patience, Scrap”.

She was running out of patience, though. And today was The Day, after all. The raged words on the office finally stopped, and she heard his steps towards the kitchen. He looked distraught as he sat down on the chair. That made her frown, but it did not diminish her resolve to question him once again.

“Um, I’ll be going out now…” she said, slowly, watching him from the corner of her eye.

He sighed. “Right”.

“But… Well, how’s it going, Evan?” she asked bluntly. Molly didn’t need to say what “it” was about, he already knew. His expression dropped a little more, and she could see all the expression lines on his face growing deeper.

“Well, as a matter of fact, I just got a call from a friend at the CID your mother used to work at”.

Oh. The enraged talk.

“Well… That can’t be good” she said in advance.

“And it isn’t”.

Molly sat up straighter on the chair, worried. “What is it?”

Evan seemed not only worried, she observed. He seemed subdued. “They’re putting your mother's case 'on hold'”.

Molly stared at him, not sure about what she heard. “What?”

Her godfather clenched his fists over the kitchen table. “Riley is no longer investigating your mother’s death”.

She shook her head, unable to wrap her mind around the news. D.I. Riley was the fourth investigator in her mother’s case, and everybody knew how bad it was for an investigation to be thrown around from hand to hand. “What?”

“He’s no longer the lead investigator of your mother’s death” Evan repeated, sounding bitter. “It’s on hold, for the time being. He says they’ve got a ‘truckload of new cases’, so they’re in need of some people from the cold cases squads”.

Molly felt as if someone had dipped her in freezing water. “No… No”, she said, shaking her head. That couldn’t be true. “My mother... She was one of them. They know who did this. How… This is going nowhere”, she mumbled, feeling a bit dizzy.

Evan rubbed his eyes tiredly. He did that a lot. “I know… I’m sorry, Scrap. But there’s really nothing we can do…”

“But you have influence!”

“It’s not that simple, Molly! I’m retired and I don’t assign people to cold cases in CIDs!”

She looked at him in bewilderment. “Why are you letting this go so easily, Evan?!” she finally screamed, enraged. Things weren’t supposed to happen that way. Things were never supposed to happen that way. They knew it was Arthur Layton who shot her mother, they had his hair fiber collected from her mother’s car, they had their recorded encounter in which Molly also played a part, they had everything to get him… And however, the man seemed to have disappeared in thin air.

“There’s really nothing I can do, Mols!”

“No! I don’t accept that!” she said, rising from the chair. “This is a façade! Someone is covering up for that bastard Layton, D.I. Riley said himself!”

“You do not swear under this roof, Molly Drake!” he said, loudly and nervously.

“Why are you acting like this?! Will you accept this?!” she demanded, feeling the tears in her eyes and hating herself for that.

“No, I’ll not! But right now” he said, bringing his voice to a softer tone. “Right now, Molly, I want you to think about the future and your birthday party. Right now there’s nothing we can do, but I’ll talk to Riley tomorrow morning, alright?”

With a sudden movement, Molly toppled the milk jar on the floor, which fell and made a loud crashing noise, spilling milk everywhere, including her godfather's immaculate shoes. “That is not good enough! This is an outrage! I can’t accept this!”

She turned to leave, not even caring about Evan’s carefully wrapped present.

“Molly, don’t do this!” he pleaded, which made her stop under the kitchen’s threshold. “Today is not only her death’s anniversary!… It’s your birthday too, you can’t forget that! We should be celebrating the life she gave you. Don’t do this to yourself, Molly. Her investigation is not your responsibility”.

Without turning back, she took a deep breath. “But it’s my business”.

“Molly!” he tried once again, as she reached the front door. “Will you come tonight?”

Her reply was barely above a whisper, because she felt her throat being clutched from the inside. "Today is not a day to celebrate. Why do people insist on that?"

And she left.


	3. Like a Rocket to Mars

  _We stumble and fall, we stumble and fall_

_Skin on skin, but there's heaven in_

_Heaven's in here_

_Heaven's in her_

_Among the twilight and stars_

_Like a rocket to Mars_

_Heaven’s in here_

 Molly woke up with a start to the sound of David Bowie’s voice. It echoed in her head and it made her open her eyes painfully, only to blink at the blinding light that shone over her head. Molly closed her eyes again, and tried once more, this time, slowly.

She tried to sit up, only to discover that she had been tied down with duck tape, and that her shin throbbed and hurt like hell.

Then Molly remembered.

“HELP!” she screamed and heard the echo of her own voice, as she struggled to free her body. However, she was very firmly tied down; her head was the only part of her body that was free to move. And so Molly tried to make out her surroundings – she seemed to be strapped on a table, with a single light bulb right above her. Now that she was finally awake, it didn’t seem so bright at all.

In fact, it was quite dark. “HELP! PLEASE!”

Molly could make out the silhouettes of chairs and other tables, as well as a counter on the opposite side and some bar stools in front of it. The room wasn’t very big, though. With a few strides she could get to the counter – she could also see a door on the left wall opposite to the counter. There were no windows, so Molly assumed it was in the basement level.

It looked like an old pub.

An old, abandoned pub.

God. She could be anywhere.

_The first and the last are telling it all_  
Telling you loud but selling it small  
I'm taking a swing at this shadow of mine  
Crucifix hangs an' my heart's in my mouth  
But it's here

 Molly was starting to hate that music. She could see a small stereo propped on the counter, blasting the irritating sound. If only she could turn it down… Her shin was stinging with pain, and she could feel the fabric of her pants humid with blood. The feeling made her head spin. Nonetheless, she also felt something tightly wrapped around her wound that prevented more blood loss.

Molly could feel the small red notebook pressed against her chest, which was a strange comfort. With some effort she was able to feel her pants’ pocket. Her mobile phone was gone, obviously. She sobbed, and only then did she notice that she had been crying ever since she opened her eyes.

She struggled once more against her restraints, all in vain, and it only made her shin sorer. She cried even harder. The worst of all was not knowing what was going on. Who was that man, how did he know her name… What did he _want_ with her.

Visions of bludgeoning, torture and rape flashed through her mind. She couldn’t stop herself from thinking the worst. Molly thought about her mother. What would she do? She also thought about her godfather – my god, the last words she said to him… If something happened to her, if she didn’t make it to the party… What would he do?

The party.

If Molly missed the party, he wouldn’t send out for her. Not yet. He would think she had missed it in purpose. He wouldn’t try and look for her until tomorrow… And maybe tomorrow was too late.

She screamed, calling out for help, hoping someone could hear her… But as she cried out, she knew that the only reason for her kidnapper to not gag her was that no one could actually hear her.

She cried even harder, until she was too drained to cry, and just laid there, silently, watery eyes looking everywhere for an escape route, but seeing none.

The music was on repeat, and it was driving her crazy. On the fourth time David Bowie started singing about dreaming between the blade and the tongue, Molly heard the steps of someone coming down the stairs outside the old pub. And then, the noise of a door being opened and shut very quickly.

He had arrived.

Molly observed, wide-eyed, as he crossed the room and got to her. She struggled with her boundaries, only hurting her wrists and ankles and loosing the tight knot around her wounded shin. “You let me go… Right now… My godfather has friends on the police…” she was trying to sound demanding, but the plea came out in a stuttering, low voice. She sounded weak and vulnerable – which, in fact, was exactly what she was.

_We stumble and fall like tragedy falls_  
We stumble and twirl there's heaven in here  
We stumble and fall uncertain we fall  
There's flesh on flesh but there's heaven in  
Heaven's in here

The kidnapper smiled down at her, ignoring her pleas completely. “Don’t you love this music? I love this music. I could hear it one hundred times in a row!”

He had blonde hair and his eyes where some shade of blue. Molly could see a scar running from his chin to his ear, like it was slashed not so long ago. It was still in a distinct shade of pink. He had big bags under his eyes, and looked quite tired.

The more she fought the duck tape, the more she felt the scratches on her skin hurt. Her shin started to pound with pain. “Please… Please…” she sobbed. “Don’t… hurt me… My godfather will pay you anything…”

And with that, the man laughed loudly and hard. If she had seen him on the street, she would never take him as a bad guy. He looked like a man who once had been strong, but now it was tired and confused, and that scared her. As he laughed, he put an arm around his middle, as if he was hurting, and stopped laughing to moan with pain.

“Arh, sorry, I shouldn’t have carried you,  baby girl… I’m not fully recovered, and we can’t abuse of a miracle recovery now, can we?” he said, as he turned and picked up from the floor a plastic bag. “Now, now, baby girl, I know you must be scared. I wish there was another way to do this, more comfortably. But if I went to you and tried to talk you into it, you’d never have believed me, so... Here we are”.

She had no idea what he was talking about, and that scared the hell out of her. So he wasn’t your typical kidnapper. He was a real nutter. A crackpot. The tears wouldn’t stop flowing from her eyes. But he wasn’t quite finished:

“I just wanted to say that, well, I don’t mean to hurt you… Not really” he said, but he didn’t look quite sure about what he was talking. “I mean, I suppose it’s going to hurt a little, but it’ll pass soon…”

“No, no!...” Molly couldn’t help but to writhe under the duck tape.

“Hush!” and with a sudden movement he put a hand over her mouth, the touch of his skin against her lips making her sick. “No need to make another mess! Look, you’ve already got rid of my bandage on your shin! If you don’t stop squirming, it’ll hurt even more! And we don’t want that, do we? You’re supposed to go smoothly, that’s what He instructed me”.

Her eyes widened in fear. That man was not alone. Someone had paid the nutter to kidnap her. This was bigger and more complex. How was she supposed to live through this?

The tears fell freely on her face and he let go of her, turning his back to her and rummaging through the plastic bag. Meanwhile, David Bowie kept singing the now horrid song to Molly’s ears, nonstop.

_Heaven's in here_

_Heaven's in her_

_Among the twilight and stars_

“I went through some big trouble to get these, you know” he murmured, even though she couldn’t see what he was doing. “I almost got caught at the hospital, but I managed… After all, He’s by my side. And nothing can go wrong, baby girl. I owe Him”.

When he turned, Molly saw that he was holding a syringe, with a transparent liquid inside it. It looked like a lot of liquid, be it what it might be.

“STAY AWAY!” she screamed. “I swear to god, my godfather will _kill_ you if something happens to me! STAY AWAY!” she screamed and writhed, feeling the pain in her shin growing even stronger. With her squirms, the bleeding had started once again, and at the sight of the needle, she felt dizzier.

“Look at the mess you’ve made, baby girl!” he complained, looking at her wound. “I’ll have to take care of this, we don’t want you dying out, do we? But first things first”.

And he gave a step forward, needle in hand.

“Wait! Wait!” she screamed, not caring about the bleeding anymore. “Don’t do this! Why are you doing this to me? Why?!”

He stopped with the needle in mid air, aiming to her arm. “Well… He asked me to do this. He said it was the price I had to pay”, he answered matter-of-factly, as if it was no big deal to kidnap a girl and drug her with whatever that was.

She tried her best to sound convincing. It took all her might not to keep screaming.

“But you don’t need to… If you let me go…” she sobbed, “if you let me go, I promise I won’t tell anyone. I promise you. My godfather can protect you, from whoever is threatening you…”

The man shook his head, as if she was a bad girl and he was disappointed at her. “Who said anything about threats, baby girl?”, and he got closer.

“NO! Please!...”

“Not to worry, I got the right amount of it” he said, in a soft voice as he pointed at the syringe, trying to calm her down. “I’m not a pro, but I won’t let you die”. And, at the sound of Bowie’s lyrics, he smiled down at her and whispered: “It’ll be a quick trip to Mars!”

He laughed, and Molly felt the sting of the needle in her forearm. Very quickly, everything went dark, Bowie’s voice slowly fading into that darkness as well…

_Heaven's in here_

_Heaven's in her_

_Among the twilight and stars_

_Like a rocket to Mars_

_Heaven’s in here…_


	4. The Man in the Suit

Molly turned in her position and raised a hand to her head. The mere movement made her let out a moan of pain, and she could barely keep her eyes open. In the distance, she was able to hear men chatting.

They were coming down the stairs.

Oh god, she was saved.

Moaning, she tried to sit up, but gave up the minute she raised her head and the world actually spun around her. Maybe it was the drug effect, still wearing off. How long did he leave her there? She couldn’t be certain. It felt like minutes, but it could have been days, as far as she was concerned.

The men opened the door and got in, loudly and unceremoniously.

Molly heard their intake of air when they saw her lying on that table.

Table? No, she was lying on the floor, she could feel the wooden floor beneath her. She still had her eyes closed, too drugged to open them.

“Bloody hell” whispered one of the men, shocked. His voice was one of a very young man. Molly wondered what exactly had happened to her, but besides the terrible headache, she felt her body just fine. No funny aches, which she considered a relief, if not a blessing.

“Oh…” she moaned, turning on her back.

“You girl!” shouted the other man, not at all young, and Molly could feel him getting closer. “You better be going very quickly, this ain’t no homeless shelter!”

“Wha--?”, she tried to speak, so instead, she sounded like a squeaking duck.

“You heard me!” said the same voice, and to Molly’s utter surprise, she actually felt a boot connecting to her middle, which made her curl up in pain.

Had he just _kicked_ her?

She finally opened her eyes and looked up, bewildered. He was a bearded, green-eyed man, with the slightest Irish accent to him. And he was a very angry Irishman.

“Get up! Go away!” he demanded, pointing at the door through which he had just got in – the same door Molly remembered her kidnapper getting in. “We’re patching up a sound-proof wall, not a bloody shelter! Go, go!”

This time, the man actually grabbed her arm and dragged her to the door.

“No! Wait!” she squirmed, trying to free her arm and accomplishing it. “You don’t understand, I’ve been kidnapped!”

Both men laughed hard at that. “A street kid like you?” asked the younger man, skeptically but cautiously, as if he was considering her frame and her story. He couldn’t have been older than 18 years old, but he looked like he already had seen a lot of pain in his life. He was red-haired like the older man, but his eyes looked a lot softer.

“Now you!” the older Irishman admonished her. “Stop telling lies and just be happy that I don’t actually beat the shit out of you! Go away, I don’t know how you got into the pub but go away already!” He took her by the arm once again, but this time he actually put her on her feet, instead of dragging her through the floor like a piece of garbage.

“But you don’t understand!...” she screamed, trying to free herself once again, but this time failing. “I really _was_ kidnapped! What day is today?”, she asked, trying to make out for just how long she was left there – maybe that could explain why they thought she was a street kid.

The Irishman was now dragging her up the steps to toss her violently and unceremoniously on the street walk. “You had your warm night, go away” he muttered under his breath, his face red as a tomato. He was mad, alright, but Molly noticed that he wasn’t up to hurt her, not really. The kick was just to scare her.

“What day is today?!” she insisted, now feeling really lost as she looked around. She had no idea where she was.

Without turning back, and already reaching the door, the man replied: “Today is the day the Berlin wall fell, not that a kiddie like you knows anything about it, right?” He smirked.

She shook her head, unsure. “What?” she asked again, confused. What had he just said to her?

“Today is November 9th, you stupid girl!” exclaimed the man, looking up at her from the pub’s door. Molly stood very still, astounded. She couldn’t have been there for over a month. She just couldn’t. “Now go home… Or wherever you live” he mumbled, “I don’t wanna see you near me pub anymore, do you hear me? I don’t make charity.”

She gulped, and whispered a “yes, sir” in response, though nothing made sense.

 _At all._ What had he said about the Berlin wall?

She turned and started walking. Not that she had a plan, mind you, but walking had always helped her think and, at the moment, it also kept the cold at bay. As Molly walked, she looked around, eagerly, trying to figure out in which part of London her kidnapper had brought her. There were a few old-fashioned cars parked along the street, which could be any street, really. She couldn’t see any big advisements or big stores to help her.

She shook her head. Maybe the man was a History enthusiast and liked to recall great events from the past… Though he did not look like the History fan type.

People passed through her quickly, and once or twice she felt them averting her gaze or crossing the street before actually passing her, but it was only when she found herself shivering with the cold that Molly finally considered her own image in a huge glass window of a coffee shop.

“My god…” she mumbled, mortified.

She looked like _shit_.

No wonder the two men in the pub thought she was a street kid. No wonder people averted her gaze. She _did_ look like a street kid. Her clothes weren’t hers. She was wearing rags and trousers just too big for her. They were all dirty and over-worn. Her face was smudged with dirt and her hair could really do with four of five bottles of shampoo.

Molly was utter crap, and she hadn’t the faintest idea of how this could have happened to her in such a span of time.

Then Molly remembered she had been shot in the leg, but when she checked for the wound… It wasn’t there. Not even a scratch that could resemble a bullet wound.

It was just gone.

She turned her back to the glass window, feeling a bit dizzy. “Oh my god” she mumbled again, finding herself unable to form a logical thought in her mind. “What the _bloody hell_ …”

Instinctively she reached for her (now ragged) coat’s inside pocket. To her surprise, it was there. Her little red notebook. She flipped it open, and the sight and smell of it felt like home. She unfolded the article about her mother’s death a stared down at it. It was ok. Everything was going to be ok.

She folded it back and put it inside the notebook again. She flipped through the pages. Her annotations were all there, immaculate, just like she remembered. She could spell them by heart. There, she noted about her mother’s last case, DCI Sam Tyler’s suicide, and how she planned to make a book out of it. Molly also noted about her mother’s development since she was brought to hospital – the surgery, the spasms of consciousness their machines could detect.

Molly flipped a page and looked down at one of her most bittersweet annotation. It was only one word, really. One little, four-lettered word, but a word that gave Molly such hopes she could burst with joy in the hospital. She was there when it happened the first time. She was there when her mother mumbled it: “Gene”.

It didn’t make any sense, but it was a response that she was still there. That little word that, for a few hours, had been Molly’s only shelter from complete breakdown. And in the end… It had failed her. It had proved to be just a false hope. It had broken Molly’s heart in a way she didn’t find possible to comprehend.

And as she stared down at that little word, she felt her body sway. The dizziness was back and she knew she was losing her footing. She shook her head, trying to get rid of the dizziness, but it was no use. Carefully, she put the notebook inside her pocket once again. She could not afford to lose it. Not her notebook, not when she needed her token more than ever.

That was when the November wind blew even harder and a newspaper page found its way to her face, flustering her. After clumsily fighting against it, Molly was able to take the paper in her hand. She looked down at it, her head spinning a little more now. It was a middle page from The Telegraph, and Molly couldn’t care less. However, something made her look closely at it.

And there, in small, italic letters, she could read the day’s date: _November 9 th, 1989._

Help. She needed help. The dizziness was getting worse. She was losing it. She was totally losing it. She ripped the paper in half and threw it away, as if she would be able to annihilate what it said by doing so. Shivering, she broke into a cold sweat.

Was she hallucinating? Was that it? Was her kidnapper playing with her, was all this a huge, over-the-top act to drive her mad?

It was too cold and she was feeling hungry, she realized suddenly. Very, _very_ hungry. Where was she? How _long_ had she been kept prisoner?

Wait. Was she _awake_ at all?

Molly looked around. Of course she was.

Suddenly the street had become very empty… She felt the cold sweat dripping down her face, making her colder. One long look through the area and Molly was able to spot a man, just across the street, facing away from her, as if absorbed with the showcase in front of him. It had to be him, then, she decided, throwing caution to the air.

“Sir…” she mumbled, feeling her throat clutch, fighting the sudden weakening knees. “Sir, please… Could you help me?…” Molly walked with unease towards him. Each step was an effort, and each time she touched the ground, her head swayed. Her vision was getting blurred, but she could see no cars coming from either way of the street. The man had his back turned to her, but he looked somewhat a distinct figure: he was wearing a black, expensive-looking suit and a fedora hat.  “Please…”

She kept her uneasy pace in his direction, though he seemed to either be ignoring her pleas or being deaf. “Sir…” Molly blinked very slowly, trying to clear her vision, “just tell me where I am…”

Before she could realize it, though, she fell on her knees in the middle of the street. Molly could feel a pressure inside her head that crushed her will as if bricks were falling over her. “ _Please!_ ”

He finally turned to her.

And that was when she saw it. His face. Better still, his absence of face. The man had no face. A blank, unmarked head was turned at her. And it laughed. Somehow, it laughed at her, and the sound pierced through her ears and brought tears of pain to her eyes.

“ _Baby girl!_ ” he said, through his lipless head. “ _Once a disappointment, always a disappointment!”_ the voice echoed and made her tremble.

Molly screamed.

The yellow Chevy Camaro screeched loudly on the street as it came to a halt, mere inches away from Molly’s body.

She was still on her knees, her face covered in tears, unaware of her own almost-run-over. She was shaking with cold and fear, staring blankly to the sidewalk where once a faceless man stood, but had suddenly vanished in the blink of an eye.

She could hear the car door being opened and violently shut. An enraged, sharp voice screamed at her: “Oi, you smelly street rag doll! Are you trying to hurt my car?!”

Molly looked to the driver. He wasn’t tall or anything, but to Molly’s point of view, he looked huge and angry and powerful... And oddly enough, safe. “Help me” she pleaded, defeated and tired, just before finally letting herself dive into oblivion as she closed her eyes and fell face-first on the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully, it will be the third and the last chapter in which Molly passes out, ‘cause this is getting tiring. =P


End file.
